August 5, 2016

The riverfront in 1850 was bustling with commerce and immigration as St. Louis served as the Gateway to the West. At Jefferson National Expansion Memorial, the new museum under the Gateway Arch will tell the story of St. Louis’ role in the expansion of the United States in new ways with interactive exhibits and engaging narratives.

Artist Michael Haynes, who has worked in the historic art field for 20 years, is creating a series of artworks detailing St. Louis’ history. In the exhibits, new murals will depict colonial St. Louis, an Osage village, and a pioneer canoe scene. Underway now, Haynes iscreating a busy levee scene from St. Louis’ 1850′s riverfront era.

Many different people resided in or passed through St. Louis in 1850. Characters in the mural include Fr. Pierre-Jean De Smet (a missionary), a Nez Perce Indian, Argonauts (a period name for gold seekers), immigrants, free African Americans, slaves, merchants, a Corps of Topographical Engineers (representing the military presence at Jefferson Barracks), and more. All of these perspectives – mercantile, indigenous, immigrant, pioneering – add to the busy activity that was everyday life on the St. Louis riverfront.

Labor is a focus of the mural. “We as modern 21st century people have lost touch with the sheer incredible amount of effort and exertion that went into everyday life and these massive scale operations,” Haynes said. “Everything had to be powered by people,horses, and crude steam power.” 

​The levee mural will be 14.5 feet tall and 30 feet wide in the new museum. To create an image at that scale, Haynes made pencil drawings of the characters, scanned the drawings, and arranged them digitally. In August, he will paint the mural at 6 feet wide by 2 feet tall. That painting will be reproduced digitally and printed to create the final mural.

Construction continues on the Gateway Arch grounds, but you can still learn more about the city’s role as the Gateway to the West by visiting the free current exhibits at the Old Courthouse.

Exhibits at the new museum are being designed in coordination with Haley Sharp Design, the National Park Service’s Harpers Ferry Center, Jefferson National Expansion Memorial, and the CityArchRiver Foundation.